Raw Story: Michael Cohen’s surprise guilty plea in federal court on Thursday not only turns up the heat on close intimates of Donald Trump, like his namesake son and beloved daughter, it once again turns the spotlight on those Republicans in Congress most complicit in the coverup of apparent cooperation between the Trump campaign in 2016 and Kremlin-linked actors.

The president’s former personal lawyer pled guilty to charges he lied to Congress. While Cohen testified in 2017 before the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — both run by Republicans — only one committee referred his testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller for review. According to Democrats, Cohen’s testimony before the House has never been made available to the special counsel.

For nearly two years, Donald Trump has had the benefit of a former campaign surrogate acting as his personal missile-blocking defense system. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has run interference on the Trump-Russia probe as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, blocking the release of pertinent information and obfuscating any findings that could be construed as damaging to Trump.